“The future depends on what you do today.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

On March 23, 2000, our family sat in a hospital room with our 15 month old son, Ben, learning everything to survive life with this monster they call type 1 diabetes (T1D). The doctors told us just to keep Ben alive insulin must be self-administered by injection multiple times every day; we would have to guess at the dosage based primarily on what he has eaten; if we give him too much insulin it may kill him and if we give him too little he could suffer from other life-altering or deadly complications; and this disease will never go away or be in remission.

Now fourteen years later we are still fighting this disease each day. We still fight the high and low blood sugars. We worry about the long term complications, especially the effects on Ben’s eye sight and organs. Being diagnosed so young, Ben can’t tell what “normal” blood sugars feel like and we worry about him not testing because he doesn’t want to be different from his friends or stand out in class. We worry about a low during the night and him going off to college.

We take on these worries so Ben doesn’t have too. We can’t take away the burden of T1D but we can take action. We promised our little boy two things – that he would live a normal life and that we would do everything we could to help find a cure. JDRF helps us keep those promises. JDRF is dedicated to finding a cure and keeping people with T1D healthy and safe today until we reach our ultimate goal of a cure.

As successful as JDRF has been, there is still a large gap between where we are today and the funds we need to deliver life-changing therapies in the future. With so much promising research reaching human clinical trials (smart insulin, artificial pancreas, encapsulation) our dollars are more important than ever. The future depends on what we do today! Without funding, this research will not move forward, and the future of a world without T1D will not be possible.

This year our team will be supporting the Walk to Cure Diabetes with a goal of raising $10,000. It is a lofty goal for us. We have been fundraising for over 14 years and just when we think we need a break from hosting a fundraiser, sending letters, or asking our family and friends for donations – we look at Ben and realize he never has a break from T1D. So we will keep our promise, we will do everything we can to find a cure. We ask that you join our efforts, think about how you can take the extra step to raise more money, increase your goal, and help us create a future where T1D no longer exists.

Thank you and see you on August 2^nd!

Lori and Pat Steinauer